"Sit on my back and show me the way; I will serve you with my feet, and you me with your eyes." So he took the cripple and carried him home, and Katoma sat on his back, kept a look out all round, and cried out from time to time: "Right! Left! Straight on!" and so forth. Well, they lived some time in the forest in that way, and caught hares, foxes, and bears for their dinner. One day the cripple says-- "Surely we can never go on living all our lives without a soul [to speak to]. I have heard that in such and such a town lives a rich merchant who has a daughter; and that merchant's daughter is exceedingly kind to the poor and crippled. She gives alms to everyone. Suppose we carry her off, brother, and let her live here and keep house for us." The blind man took a cart, seated the cripple in it, and rattled it into the town, straight into the rich merchant's courtyard. The merchant's daughter saw them out of window, and immediately ran out, and came to give them alms. Approaching the cripple, she said: "Take this, in Christ's name, poor fellow!" He [seemed to be going] to take the gift, but he seized her by the hand, pulled her into the cart, and called to the blind man, who ran off with it at such a pace that no one could catch him, even on horseback. The merchant sent people in pursuit--but no, they could not come up with him. The heroes brought the merchant's daughter into their forest hut, and said to her: "Be in the place of a sister to us, live here and keep house for us; otherwise we poor sufferers will have no one to cook our meals or wash our shirts. God won't desert you if you do that!" The merchant's daughter remained with them. The heroes respected her, loved her, acknowledged her as a sister. They used to be out hunting all day, but their adopted sister was always at home. She looked after all the housekeeping, prepared the meals, washed the linen. But after a time a Baba Yaga took to haunting their hut and sucking the breasts of the merchant's daughter. No sooner have the heroes gone off to the chase, than the Baba Yaga is there in a moment. Before long the fair maiden's face began to fall away, and she grew weak and thin. The blind man could see nothing, but Katoma remarked that things weren't going well. He spoke about it to the blind man, and they went together to their adopted sister, and began questioning her. But the Baba Yaga had strictly forbidden her to tell the truth. For a long time she was afraid to acquaint them with her trouble, for a long time she held out, but at last her brothers talked her over and she told them everything without reserve. "Every time you go away to the chase," says she, "there immediately appears in the cottage a very old woman with a most evil face, and long grey hair. And she sets me to dress her head, and meanwhile she sucks my breasts."